


Ternion of Trouble

by dulce_de_leche_go



Series: Blood Sugar Sex Magik [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Accidental Baby Acquisition, Babies, Crack, F/M, Fluff and Crack, Minister for Magic Hermione Granger, Ministry of Magic, Parent Voldemort, Post-Hogwarts, Post-War, Pregnancy, Triplets, Unplanned Pregnancy, Voldebabies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-12
Updated: 2018-02-14
Packaged: 2019-03-15 18:12:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 7,984
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13618881
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dulce_de_leche_go/pseuds/dulce_de_leche_go
Summary: Structure is a very important facet to Hermione and Tom Riddle's, aka Lord Voldemort's, "arrangement." To unexpectedly becomeexpectingturns so very many things on its ear.Short and humorous "sequel"/spiritual successor to the more serious (and smut-filled)Burn With Me. An AU of an AU? It is best if you don't take this seriously at all.





	1. You're What Now?

**Author's Note:**

> This is the reuploading (and slightly edited) version of the fic originally uploaded to FFNet.
> 
> This story came about from a chat conversation between friends about how most pairings almost always reach the "baby stage" at some point. Dramione, Tomione, Remione - there's always a "baby stage" and folks like seeing happy couples with babies. So...because it's _me_ I was like...but what about Volmione babies though? They should have babies too! (Even though I dislike children...especially babies) And then I wanted to do fluff...and. Yeah. Volmione fluff with babies: the shit that nobody ever wanted to see.
> 
> You're welcome.
> 
> (I should also note this was written way before Cursed Child was a thing so...the Voldepenis was still speculative. o_O Canon Voldepenis for the.........win?)
> 
> Edited with the assistance of **[disillusionist9](http://archiveofourown.org/users/disillusionist9)**!

* * *

 

Voldemort tucked the bundle of scrolls beneath an arm, tugging a piece of parchment from the top of the stack to scan the runes once more as he made his way to the Minister's Grande Suite.

_This would work nicely, QUITE nicely for the next stages of the plan…_

He waved a hand to open the doors to the room he'd come to share with the esteemed Minister for Magic as well as his second and, he had to admit, much more talented 'creator' and…whatever else it was that they were. Tom Riddle had never been one for 'relationships' and his growth into the Dark Lord Voldemort also warranted little time for gallivanting around with soft, troublesome creatures like women, so his experiences had been few and far between before his latest resurrection. It was perhaps this lack of experience that had left him completely off his guard as he stepped into the room to speak with his Lady.

"Hermione," he said without looking up from the parchment, "I found these in the archives, you should have a look at them. I require your eyes on—" His words were cut off by a resounding slap and Voldemort dropped everything in his arms in favor of drawing his wand in an angry flourish. His lip turned up in a snarl and the tip of his wand was leveled on what appeared to be the rather upset, crying face of the witch he'd come looking for.

"You!" she hissed venomously. Hermione slapped his wand arm aside in such a mundane movement that he faltered and his brows went up in surprise. "YOU!" she snarled again, this time stepping into his small circle of space, jabbing him in the chest with a finger. "YOU did this!"

Voldemort recovered his composure and tried to step away from the tiny fuming witch only to find her shadowing each one of his with one of her own. He shot her a disgruntled look and wrenched her small prodding finger from his chest to give her his best menacing expression; she merely glowered in response.

"I did _what,_ Hermione? You shall have to explain yourself rather than trying to skewer me with your manicure."

His bland sarcasm pulled another growl from her throat and she ripped her wrist from his grip in favor of pacing away toward the nightstand by their bed. Voldemort opened his mouth to speak but was halted by a stick-like object being thrown violently towards his head. He waved a hand to slow its velocity and plucked the thing out of the air to examine it more closely.

It wasn't a wand that was for certain.

It was about the length of his hand from heel to fingertip, flat and only as wide as his thumb. This curious thing was a rather sterile looking shade of white and had a small window cut into one bit of it where there lay a curious assortment of blue lines of varying shades.

Voldemort frowned and tossed it onto the foot of their bed, returning his attention to his Lady who was now scrubbing at her eyes with the heels of her palms and muttering obscenities beneath her breath. With a sigh and a silent plea for patience, he approached her once more, earning him a feral sounding growl even though she finally allowed him to pry her hands from her face. His Hermione looked up at him with great big puffy red eyes, her bottom lip drawn between her teeth, and she swallowed, stifling her tearful hiccups.

Voldemort sighed.

"Are you hurt?"

Her eyes narrowed but her bushy head shook back and forth in the negative.

"Bleeding?"

She scoffed in a spiteful sounding way but her head shook again.

He tilted his head and watched her eyes focus on somewhere off to his side. He tracked their focus to the odd white stick again and, with great exasperation, asked, "Insane?"

Hermione's glare snapped back to his face, lips peeling back in a savage baring of teeth and she hissed, "I'm _PREGNANT,_ you prat!"

Voldemort stared down at her for a long, hard moment.

He was waiting for the punchline.

He was waiting for her to explain or amend her statement perhaps…

His lids lowered and rose in quite possibly the slowest, most skeptical blink of his entire life.

"Sorry, what?"

He wasn't sure what it was about the question that tipped it all over the edge, but the next second, his angry – _Merlin_ , she'd been so angry – little witch had flung herself against him and was bawling into his chest with her fists wadded in his robes. She was spouting the rudest obscenities he'd ever heard of between blubbering tear ridden babbles and his mind just kept circling back to the one word—

_Pregnant._

"…your bloody fault!"

_Pregnant?_

"…I had PLANS! I can't run the world while changing nappies!"

_Preg-nant. But…_

He stopped her in the midst of her tirade with his hands on her shoulders and gently pried her from him.

"Hermione," he began reasonably, "… _what?_ _HOW?_ "

The witch growled again.

"I-am-pregnant you dolt! Surely a wizard such as yourself understands how THAT works. I know they don't very well teach biology at Hogwarts but—"

"Of course I know how that works!" he snapped. "I meant… _how?_ With you—" His face turned sour at the number of distasteful ways to talk about the subject and finally he said, "I thought I was sterile. What with the whole…my body being destroyed _twice_ nonsense."

Hermione pulled away again and began to pace, throwing her hands up in defeat.

"So did I! I mean, I don't know about your first resurrection, but I had to collect the remnants of all your horcruxes, siphon what was left of your magical energy from the lot of them, fix your pendant and then funnel it all back into that before I was even able to _begin_ going about the process for recreating your body! It wasn't really difficult, truth be told, but you were well and truly GONE!"

Voldemort watched her pace. Listening to her describe the steps of her preparations for his second resurrection so offhandedly – as if it were easy, just time consuming – caused him to recall just how extraordinary of a witch the woman was. He felt his cock stir at the ease in which this creature of the light wove dark magic to her whim and, with the shiver that coursed down his spine as his shaft brushed along the inner fabric of his robes, he recalled why it was she was so distraught in the first place.

She huffed again. "—I just don't understand! When did this _happen?!_ "

The question stimulated his memory and he recalled a very particular session of heated rutting – for there really couldn't have been anything else they reasonably could have called it – in a board room several weeks ago where she'd ended up flat backed on a desk with her heels up around his ears. Voldemort remembered how eagerly she'd taken him and the sorts of impassioned noises that fell from her throat in that session and idly wondered if that was, of all their meetings, the culprit for their ‘when’.

He ignored the additional distracting throb between his legs and focused once more on the distraught witch before him.

"We can just get rid of it then," he said.

Hermione stopped in her pacing, one hand over her belly and the other over her open mouth looking positively aghast. **_"WHAT?"_ **

Voldemort resisted the urge to roll his eyes and simply held his hands up. "You are the one stating you had ‘plans’. There are a slew of spells that can remedy your distaste of the situation if you do not want it—"

"I didn't say I didn't want it!"

And it was his turn to be utterly dumbstruck.

Blinking several times, unsure if he'd heard her correctly, he composed himself enough to not stutter when he asked, "You…DO want it?"

Hermione's cheeks lit up in a bright shade of red and she ducked her head, the hand hovering over her stomach still resting there protectively. "I…don't NOT want it…"

Voldemort's eyes narrowed and his hands flexed a few times before he carefully, oh-so-carefully, stepped closer. He reached towards her hair but hesitated for a long, tense moment before finally smoothing his fingers over her curls. She turned huge, frightened yet still somehow monstrously fierce eyes up at him and both her hands came to rest over her abdomen in a defensive gesture. A curious flush of heat ran through him from head to toe when he understood that she was knowingly considering having his sprog more than she was considering… _not_.

"Hermione—" He unconsciously extended a hand towards her stomach.

"Tom Riddle," she warned and reflexively jerked away, bumping back into the nightstand. "Don't you dare!"

When he stepped in once more and was met with the point of her wand beneath the hollow of his chin, he chuckled. Wrapping a hand gently around her wrist, he caught her stare and flashed her that wicked smile of his, pleased to see the lines around her eyes ease just the smallest bit as he kissed her palm.

"I would not dream of it, my Lady."

The tightness to her shoulders lessened more and he reached for her again. When she wove her fingers through his and cautiously tugged it into place over her stomach with, he noted, her wand still shoved firmly against his throat, his smile widened. His fingers flexed and his claw tipped thumb rubbed a small set of circles over her abdomen.

"I simply believe that a…change of plans is now in order, wouldn’t you say?"

Hermione eyed Voldemort carefully, watched the way he was staring at her midsection as if she were already swollen and as if there was anything he could already see or feel from her there. She lost track of how many minutes actually passed, but there was a glint of something very peculiar in his eyes that did nothing to set her teeth on edge and everything to release the last of the tight anxiety and fear in her spine instead.

She sighed, finally removing her wand from his jugular and setting it back onto the stand behind her. His eyes slid up to her face and for the shortest moment, they seemed alight with emotion that could have belonged in any other man before it was immediately shuttered away. She averted her stare in favor of looking to the spot where their hands joined and the way his thumb continued stroking a soothing pattern over her still flat belly.

Smiling behind her fall of hair, she mused, "I would agree, since, Tom, you’re due to be a father."

Her smile twitched into a grin when his grip tightened into something she could only have described as ‘possessive’.

_Change of plans, indeed…_


	2. Cravings

If anyone had told her Lord Voldemort would have been one of  _ those _ fathers, Hermione would never have believed them.

She could understand his obsessive need for planning; it made sense to have all their ducks in a row. Hermione figured that was probably one of his better qualities before he'd driven himself into insanity via the dark arts.

Ghastly as he was to look at, though not nearly as much as he'd been before she got her hands on his essence and resurrected the man herself, he also proved to be devilishly charming. With the way she was falling to his say on room and crib design for their coming baby, she could definitely see how he would have been able to charm the masses into genocide. She'd never known anyone that could argue the point on ivory inlaid crib banisters and rocking chairs but after his hour long tirade, she, too, was convinced that they needed them.

Those and the chiffon draperies to lighten the feel of the nursery.

Hermione sighed to herself and was rubbing her swollen belly as she waddled into her bedroom only to find her recently crowned husband – for he had decided he was traditional enough to not want their babe born out of wedlock – thrusting his wand at objects and moving furniture about in the extension of the suite where he wanted to add an alarming number of baby things. She sighed heavily again. The man didn't sleep, one of the benefits of his most recent resurrection. He was an anomaly. He existed when he should not. He was a very insult against the natural order of things and, as such, required no natural sustenance or rest.

It gave him far too much time to decide which wallpaper he preferred in the baby's room.

He'd decided on the vertical stripey kind and with as many hours as he'd spent in the room trying things out, she'd let him have it.

"Tom," Hermione began with tired irritation, "what are you doing?"

Voldemort turned sharply at the sound of his true name and brightened at the sight of his plump witch. "Ah, just in time," he said, gliding over to her.

Hermione was determined to remain annoyed with him, though it proved to be difficult some days when he would flash her this wickedly evil yet still somehow boyish grin as he kissed her fingertips or her knuckles or swept her into the cradle of his arms right before he went on his decorator's tangents. Today, he took her hand in his own and pressed his lips to the inside of her wrist before tugging her arm up to loop around his neck and pull her into a rhythmic sway.

A grin tugged at the corners of her mouth though she tried to resist it. "In time for what?"

"To provide your opinion on this rug." Voldemort rocked them in time with a silent tune until she was turned to see the new circular area rug he'd positioned between their original suite space and the new portion of the room.

Hermione eyed the rug and its charming yet bold colors that somehow managed to incorporate their preferred taste of bed linens as well as some of the newer shades of furniture she'd agreed upon. She hated to admit it, even to herself, as she loathed to continue encouraging him but…the rug really  _ did _ tie the room together. 

"It’s not an unpleasant rug to look at."

He huffed and ceased their dance, releasing her and tossing his hands up in exasperation. "You are a difficult woman."

"Who you insisted on marrying."

" _ No _ child of mine shall be born a bastard!" Voldemort turned and pointed a stern and wholly unamused look at her.

"I would venture a guess that blood binding resurrection ceremonies probably, at least at one time, would have counted as an equivalent to marriage—"

He hissed at her. "Technicalities!"

She waved off his temper and waddled to plop herself in one of her husband's more brilliant ideas of a slider rocking chair and put her feet up on the matching slider ottoman. "I don't oppose the idea of our marriage, I was just making a point."

Voldemort whipped his wand out again and flicked it at her with a silent command and her chair and footrest took up an easy sway reminiscent of their earlier dance. She made a contented noise at the spell and wriggled further into the cushions. He took a second to admire the way her sleepy face was barely peeking over the swell of her breasts and belly at that angle before he returned to rearranging low, child friendly bookshelves and filling them to the brim with the easiest reads for dark magic tomes he could think of. He was eager to lose himself in his preparations once more, having rejected his wife's earlier suggestions of letting any of their idiot minions take up the task lest he find himself with a less than perfect arrangement.

Hermione watched him with lidded eyes in a companionable silence for a long while until finally she murmured, "I'm hungry."

His wand arm stopped mid-flourish and his back muscles all tightened into a rigid line. Voldemort turned so very cautiously to peer at the witch over his shoulder to find her staring at him with exhausted yet dangerously expectant eyes. He'd decided she looked most like the evil predator she had grown into over the years of her –  _ their _ – rule in these moments. While he had been released from his magical bindings a long time ago, the times where she uttered those fateful words, he felt a cold weight grow to immense proportions in his gut and, mostly, he recalled the one time he had brushed off her cravings.

If nothing else, Voldemort had been reborn a much saner, much more rational being his second time around. He favored more of the cunning he'd exhibited in his prime before the worst of his destructive descent into dark magic. His restoration of a degree of his sanity was truly a testament to Hermione's prowess with spellwork, especially considering how little she'd had to work with in bringing him back.

It was due to this that it had only taken that one time for him to realize the error of that particular decision to ignore his wife's cravings. Dealing with his witch at her best was a monumental task. Dealing with his witch when her hormones tended to outweigh a portion of  **_her_ ** rational moments…

…it had  **_ONLY_ ** taken one time for him to vow never to ignore the cravings again.

Voldemort halted his arrangements and padded over to his sleepy witch, reaching out and brushing away several stray bundles of glossy curls from her face. "What might I acquire for you, Hermione?"

She made a sweet noise in the back of her throat and leaned into his touch. " _ You _ don't have to get it…"

He snorted and waved his free hand dismissively. "If I won't trust the help with the tomes, what makes you think I'll trust them with feeding you? Now, what is it our child requires?"

Hermione chuckled at his phrasing but rubbed her stomach anyway. She traced the insides of her teeth with her tongue and put a careful bit of thought into it. "Apples," she said at last, though when he nodded and began to move, her hand darted out and caught his sleeve. "And hummus. Also some baked crisps."

Voldemort quirked a brow at her expression and how it grew more and more animated by the second as she thought of her bounty of foodstuffs.

"Chips," Hermione added, "But I want them fresh from…here, let me make a list for you." She silently summoned a quill and parchment to her lap and scribbled out several items onto it as well as the specific vendors or restaurants where she required them to be fetched from. Checking over the list a couple of times and scribbling one last thing at the end of it, she passed it confidently to her husband.

With a carefully schooled expression, Voldemort plucked the parchment from her and read it...he then  _ re-read _ it to be certain he was seeing correctly. "You want me to go to  _ Muggle _ London for chips?"

"Yes," she said quickly and defensively at his tone. "Is that a  _ problem?" _

His eyes flicked up from the paper to her face and the way she was chewing on the edge of her lip. His gaze narrowed and he refocused on the list once more. "No. Of course not, my dear." He was rewarded with one of her more affectionate, pleased noises and he shuddered at the way it eased away the iron weight in his gut with the sound.

Voldemort frowned again on his last check of the items.

"And brown sauce?"

"Yes."

"We  _ have _ brown sauce." He could feel his wife's glare heating the side of his head as soon as the words were out of his mouth.

"The fruity kind."

"You can't use the brown sauce we have?"

"I WANT the fruity kind for my chips."

He couldn't help the sneer at the idea of the fruity brown concoction slathered all over her chips. The idea turned his stomach, actually, but he'd never much cared for chips in the first place, much less to have them slathered in  _ anything _ .

"You didn't note that you wanted the fruity kind," he began to scold her and Voldemort felt the tickle of a plume brush over the back of his hand. When he looked up, her sweet, docile expression had twisted into something dark and dangerous and like… _ that one time… _ He took the quill from her quickly and above her earlier scribble included  _ "the fruity kind"  _ within parentheses and finished his earlier statement with a placating, "which can be easily amended, of course."

That pleased visage fell back into place and she resumed enjoying her magical rocking chair.

The briefest idea of smothering the smug look on her face beneath his palm was tempered by the fond way she hummed and rubbed her largely rounded abdomen, cooing sweetly at their growing babe with promises of  _ "delicious vittles from daddy." _ He scowled at himself for allowing the tingle of warmth in his chest to linger as long as it did before shooing that away into the recesses of his mind and replacing it with a much more pertinent set of things to think about.

_ Apples. Hummus. Crisps – the ruffle kind, not plain. Chips from Walt's. Fruity brown sauce from the corner market. _

_ Apples. _

_ Hummus. _

_ Ruffley crisps. _

_ Walt's chips. _

_ Fruity brown sauce. _

_ Apples… _

_ Hummus… _

 


	3. Swallowing Watermelons

Many months had passed since Hermione had seen her toes, though at every check-up, she made her best efforts to get a glimpse of them while waiting for the nurse and her doctor to come in and go through their routine. At first, Voldemort had detested and angrily  _ protested _ her choice to use a Muggle "birthing" doctor – as he'd labeled her – for the monitoring and care of their baby, though his protests were swiftly silenced when she successfully set him on fire one evening. His wounds had been negligible but she'd made her point and he, albeit begrudgingly, accepted her decision so long as she would also be looked over by a Mediwitch of his choosing post Muggle visits. She'd agreed and Voldemort had been blissfully uninvolved with her modern Muggle care until she mentioned the fact that she was going to finally find out the gender of their unborn baby.

Hermione had wanted to keep their child's sex a surprise, but as her due date grew closer and closer, her curiosity was more than piqued as to exactly how big her baby was going to be. Some days, when she saw the size of her abdomen in their huge bathroom mirror, she speculated whether or not the myth of growing watermelons in one's gut were true or not and mused that she'd just swallowed a half a dozen of the seeds. She finally caved and decided the mystery was too much for her and let her doctor know that she would like to finally be made aware of the baby's sex at her next visit. Once Voldemort had been told of these plans, he'd subsequently demanded that she explain precisely what means of Muggle devilry they were to use to concoct such an answer for her. Unexpectedly, after she'd used the most off-putting terminology she could dredge up, he surprised her by insisting that he would accompany her to this visit.

Several glamour charms later and after some smart transfiguration spells for his clothing, a very "normal", very  _ Muggle _ looking Tom Riddle sat impatiently in a chair next to where Hermione lay on an exam table. Hermione was wiggling, adjusting the papery sheet draped over her legs in idle fidgets and had her heels planted firmly in the stirrups jutting out from the foot of the table.

Voldemort watched her amusing herself with the patterns she was creating in the air by pushing and pulling her heels around in the metal cupping them and frowned intensely. "Have you had to wait this long every time you've come to this…place?"

Hermione stopped her fidgeting long enough to shoot him a look from the corner of her eye. "Yes, Tom, usually. It's really not that bad—"

"Not  _ bad? _ " He questioned harshly. "Do they not  **_know_ ** who you are? Who  **_I_ ** am?"

She snorted and flopped her head back on the stack of surprisingly comfortable pillows. "They don't, actually. Nor do they care."

Voldemort made an utterly appalled noise in the back of his throat at that and rose sharply from his seat. " **_Absurd!_ ** " He huffed again and had the clear intention of going to fetch someone  _ right then. _

Hermione grabbed onto the pressed shirt sleeve of his transfigured outfit – he'd chosen a button down, press pleated slacks, and a matching blazer similar to his old school uniform at the time of his study at Hogwarts – and tugged him back into his seat. He fixed her with a heated glare and she just chuckled and stroked her knuckles along the fabric over his bicep. 

"Behave yourself, love," she mumbled sleepily, "I need them alive to do the exam."

Voldemort clucked his tongue at being so stifled but still preened under the endearment. His wife must have been truly exhausted to let such a thing slip. His typical frown affixed itself to his face as he positioned himself in his chair so he was closer to her side. Taking her hand between both of his own, he threaded his fingers through hers, resting them in a bare spot at her side on the cot. 

"We've a Mediwitch that can examine you just as well."

"But no ultrasound."

He sniffed at the mention of the Muggle device again. "I am certain they have just as many ways to detect the sex of our child in a  _ proper  _ fashion without all these sorts of-" He waved his hand at the machines in the room. "- _ aberrations." _

Hermione cracked open an eye that'd fallen shut and there was that dangerous and dark glint there that came into it now and again. "Did you enjoy being set on fire, husband?"

Voldemort returned her narrowed gaze with one of his own and scoffed. "We are in a Muggle space,  _ wife _ . You wouldn't dare _ , _ " he said tartly, as if his immunity were guaranteed. No sooner than the words reached her ears did the air heat uncomfortably between them. His mouth dropped open in shock and, if he were truthful, the smallest hint of arousal at her tenacity. It may have snuck into his tone as his next words came out a bit more thickly than intended. "You  _ would _ ."

Her signature and most deviant smirk quirked her lips at him and his glamoured blue eyes darkened and flickered with the red she'd come to know most intimately. She felt his hands clench around her one and the sight of his tongue darting out to moisten his lips was far more delectable than it should have been.

_ Hormones _ , Hermione mused,  _ were such a peculiar thing. _

Particularly when one second she wanted to set the obstinate man before her ablaze and the next she wanted him to mount her from behind in her favorite and most indecent sort of way.

Luckily, or unluckily depending on perspective, the sound of a sharp few knocks and the emergence of the doctor and her assistant shattered their private moment.

 


	4. Three's A Crowd

When Hermione came waddling out of her appointment ten shades paler than she had been going in with her husband brandishing a self-satisfied smile ten times wider than she'd ever seen it, she was sure she'd landed in some alternate universe. Somewhere where she was being sufficiently punished for the decisions she'd made to alter her path to walk through the valley of shadows and roll up to knock on the door to the Devil's flat. She had been certain she'd already paid her most unpleasant dues but, as her husband, the Dark Lord-of-the-Shit-Eating-Grin, guided her along the streets toward the covert entryway into The Ministry and she goggled down at the sonogram of her  **_BABIES_ ** , she realized she was sadly mistaken.

" _ Triplets _ , Hermione. TRIPLETS. Three!" Voldemort barked out a laugh that could only have belonged to one of those disgustingly proud fathers. "And here we were surprised to conceive at all, but  _ three _ !"

"Yes," Hermione groaned. "I heard you the first thousand times you said it."

He ignored her grouchy disposition and huffed out another laugh. Rubbing affectionate circles between her shoulder blades, he pressed a kiss to her temple and murmured in her ear, "I've got to have another pair of cribs made. And expand the nursery." He straightened, his cheek still brushing fondly against hers even as he walked them through the Muggle streets and pondered further renovations aloud. "Shall we have a separate room for the boy and one for the girls? Or will they just share the one?"

Hermione's glazed eyes were still stuck on the fuzzy images of her unborn children, though it wouldn't have mattered as he simply continued on.

"We'll need to just rethink the colors of the one perhaps. I believe they may be too bold for two girls even if our son is in the mix. I shall have to change the wallpaper—"

"NO!" Hermione said, suddenly aware and wholly opposed to the thought of him pestering her with MORE wallpaper suggestions. She startled the disturbingly still human looking Dark Lord and he was so taken aback by her outburst that he even stopped to look at her with a quizzically raised brow. Her cheeks pinked and she shook her head, trying to pretend that the few Muggles nearby weren't looking at the pair of them rather oddly. "I mean…" she began more quietly, "I believe the wallpaper is perfect for all three of our children, Tom."

Voldemort looked at her skeptically. "You don't think it is too bold? They  _ are _ the Slytherin family colors after all. I was thinking something with more…pink for their side of the room? Something rose colored perhaps to compliment a fluffy pink Pygmy Puff for each of the girls?"

She was all at once caught up in a huff over the very suggestion. A bit of her righteous energy swelled and spread into her limbs enough that her hip now jutted to one side and she'd taken up a very stern stance. One fist was balled up on that sassy tilted pelvis and the other had taken to prodding him right in his sternum. 

"I won't have you gender typing our children with ridiculous wallpaper ideas or preposterously pink pets and stuffies, Tom Riddle! You hear me right now! The current colors, the furniture, even the bloody snake mobile you've already put up are as fine for girls as they are boys! You will  _ not _ be spending more of your eerily sleepless nights waffling about papers and colors – the room remains the SAME!"

Voldemort blinked at her with a handful of long, slow blinks before his lips curled upwards once more in a sly smile. "Of course you are right, my wife. Of course you are  _ always _ right," he purred and pecked her on the nose. "Slytherin colors it shall remain."

This time Hermione's mouth popped open, shocked at how easily she'd just been bamboozled and he wrangled her into the shelter of his arm once more to resume their walk to The Ministry.

 


	5. Tribal Duties

"Tom."

She watched his shoulders twitch at the sound of his name but other than that, her pocket Dark Lord didn't budge.

" _ TOM!" _

"I  _ heard _ you, Hermione!" Voldemort whirled around from where he'd been weaving spells in the nursery to resemble something like a mini-version of the enchanted ceiling of Hogwarts' Great Hall. He growled at the placid expression she wore in the face of his obvious annoyance. "And would it  _ kill _ you to call me by my actual name? Or shall  _ I _ have to kill you for not?"

Hermione's head tilted to the side and she propped her chin on the heel of her hand where she sat in a rocker identical to the one he'd placed in their bedroom. She held out the thumb of her other hand and said, "One – you can't kill me. Sentimental, remember? We are together for eternity. Literally." She ticked off another finger and added, "Two – Tom  _ is _ your actual name. 'Voldemort' is just a portion of an, admittedly clever, anagram using said real name. And three-" Hermione added a final finger to her count. "-you  _ like _ it when I call you Tom. I know you do. It's a good name."

He sneered at her. "Voldemort is a  _ better _ name."

"Yet I'm 'Missus Riddle' and not 'Missus Voldemort.'"

His sour expression intensified and he turned back to his spellwork, intent on ignoring her again. His patience had started to wear thin as the days of her pregnancy went by and she'd favored supervising his continued renovations to the babies' room.

"Too bad you hadn't thought to create a  _ last _ name for yourself with all those other letters instead."

"Hermione," he warned.

"Just a testament to the occasional short-sightedness brought on by magic induced insanity, I suppose."

Voldemort snarled and turned to face his so very pregnant wife once more. "Is there a reason you are  _ here _ and not doing your Minister duties, my  _ love _ ?"

Hermione snorted at the venom in his words and held her hands out to him, wiggling her fingers. 

"You realize it's nearly midnight, don't you?" 

At that tightening of his mouth and the barely noticeable furrowing of his brow, she had her answer.

" _ Tom, _ " she purred teasingly.

He pursed his lips.

" _ Husband." _

Voldemort rolled his wand in his palm but turned fully to her and her still reaching, still wiggling fingers.

"My  _ Lord _ ," Hermione whispered mischievously. "It is time for you to come to bed."

He eyed her curiously though he did allow himself to close the short distance between them and take one of her hands. 

"I do not require sleep, remember? Or has that addled, pregnant brain of yours made you forget once again?"

"I  _ do _ realize this, you obnoxious git," she murmured without rising to the bait. "I said come to _ bed _ . I said nothing of  _ sleep _ ."

Voldemort's previous distasteful glower was replaced by a renewed and decidedly optimistic smirk. He finally took a moment to inspect her attire and noted the wispy black nightie he'd peeled off of her many a time before. The slinky silk garment appeared to be transfigured to still reach just above her knees, even over her largely rounded belly and he was almost shocked to realize that he was as entranced then by her scantily clad pregnant self as he was before.

"Ah. My mistake." He tucked his wand into a simple arm holster beneath the sleeve of his robe and extended his other hand to her to coax her back to her feet. Her huge belly bumped between them, forcing him several steps from her body and he found himself with a new puzzle. Voldemort cocked his head to one side, eying her with obvious question in his eyes. "Hermione…how…how will we…"

"I've figured that out already," she cut him off quickly with a hint of accomplished pride. "Come, I'll show you."

And with that she yanked him through the nursery door and hauled him eagerly next door to their bedroom.

 


	6. That A Baby In Your Belly Or You Just Happy To See Me?

As days passed and Hermione progressed through various stages of random bouts of arousal that demanded his attentions immediately to her current phase of "hardly able to stand him in her vicinity," Voldemort found himself enjoying the few walks around town she would urge him on. 

It was a cool, overcast day the day that she insisted he take her to get chips from Walt's so she could dine there and perhaps even get a second serving if she so fancied. It was not the first time he'd made the venture to the restaurant in the guise of a Muggle version of himself, though he did hope that once she'd birthed the babes these adventures would cease. He didn't care for the way the Muggles they came across tended to invite themselves into their space once they saw her swollen belly and her arm threaded through his.

_ "Expecting?" _ They would say.

_ "No," _ Voldemort would think,  _ "Clearly she ate a baby elephant and had an abysmal allergic reaction. That is why she is so round and all of her is swollen. Do not let our leisurely stroll fool you, we are on our way to hospital at this-very-second." _

That was the majority of them – bloody Muggles. Why did they feel the need to ask questions with such obvious answers? To validate their inner thoughts? It was obnoxious and such a waste of time.

Their walk that day was no different.

A young couple spotted them from at least a block away and Voldemort was sure they'd curbed their initial path just to be able to intercept them at the crosswalk.

"Expecting?" the man who couldn't have been much older than his mid-twenties chirped merrily and put his arm around the woman to his side.

_ Wife? Fiancee? Whore? _

Voldemort narrowed his eyes at the bloke and made to snap out a reply when his lovely wife's nails dug into his bicep. His venomous sneer turned into a strained and barely pleasant smile. 

"Yes," he said simply, then after seeing the way the woman was staring eagerly at Hermione's belly, he added, "Triplets." He could feel the glare from his witch drilling into his side since, apparently, she'd noticed the woman's intense interest as well.

" _ Triplets!" _ the woman cooed and tugged on her beau's sleeve. "Oh, Jake,  _ triplets. _ " She nearly swooned before turning big watery eyes on both Hermione and Voldemort. "You must be  _ so _ excited! How ever did you manage it?!"

Hermione replied to her first statement with a flat, "Ecstatic."

And Voldemort responded to the question with, "We had an unquantifiable amount of vigorous intercourse."

The couple paused, both of their mouths agape. They looked at each other, shared an uneasy silent exchange but smiled back at the older couple with a patronizing and patient expression.

"O-of course." This from the man.

Picking up seemingly right where she left off, the woman went back to staring openly at Hermione's stomach with that uncomfortably hungry look in her eyes. "It's so amazing, the miracle of life. One day Jake and I will hopefully be lucky enough to get pregnant."

The next bit happened in an agonizingly slow motion series of movements.

Hermione had begun to say something either crass or rude – likely both – but was stopped by the telltale hand of the woman heading for the curve of her belly. The girl's fingers were splayed and her pupils were focused on a spot on the top of Hermione's stomach where her skirted top never really wanted to fall correctly. There was a whole mess of gathered fabric there to make her look even more extraordinarily large and it seemed to call like a Siren to this random girl's mothering fantasies.

Just as her hand was about to press onto Hermione's stomach, Voldemort's came into view and grabbed the woman by the wrist in an unrelenting grip that stopped her mid-reach.

The group was stunned by the contact, Hermione more so than the rest, and Jake and his nameless whore stared at Voldemort in disbelief. Even under Jake's gaze – which was darkening  _ quickly _ with displeasure – Voldemort's grip didn't budge. He just stared back at the pair of them, the woman growing more and more frantic the longer he held on and Jake growing more and more  _ angry _ .

"Oh," Voldemort said, unamused. "Yes. We dislike the unwanted touching, don't we? It's entirely unwelcome and  _ wholly  _ unpleasant, this touching, is it not?"

"Why you—" Jake started and was cut off by an offhanded wave of Voldemort's hand that sent the man slamming bodily into the bricks of the nearest building.

Jake's lover-whore-woman-thing made to screech at the sudden scene but was silenced by Hermione uttering a spell beneath her breath with a hastily procured wand. The woman's eyes glazed over and instead of screaming, she walked so very calmly to Jake's unconscious body and knelt over him, beginning to dote and tend to his injuries.

Voldemort watched with amusement as his wife gave the imperiused girl a few more directions -  _ he's so clumsy, Jake is, took a corner far too fast you see.  _ Hermione swept her gaze around the thankfully empty stretch of street and obliviated their existence from the couple's minds. Returning to his side and taking up his arm once more, she glared at his smirking visage until he finally started walking again.

"Were you not just enlightening me the other day about spells one can and cannot use freely on the Muggle population, Minister?"

"Shut up," Hermione hissed.

He shrugged gracefully, smoothing a hand over the one tucked into the crook of his arm. "Just trying to learn the rules, my dear. I'm reintegrating into polite society. I'm reformed. You've saved me. I’ve been redeemed."

"If you won't be quiet, I'll rip your lips off and your cheeky expression off with it. Then you can go through another lifetime without being able to whistle."

Voldemort chuckled and leaned over to kiss the top of her head. "You wouldn't, you enjoy these lips too much."

"I'll just have to make do with your tongue if you continue, Tom."

"I do so love it when you're feisty."


	7. Paper Or Plastic?

He'd seen everything,  _ absolutely _ everything there was to see. 

Once you'd lost your corporeal form, traversed the world as an 'un-being,' been reborn from a pot of sludge, died again, and were reincarnated with your soul bound to a locket, what else WAS there really?

The answer to that question, apparently, was "childbirth."

**_"YOU DID THIS YOU LITTLE SHITE!"_ **

"Hermione, my love, perhaps it would be best to save your strength—"

Hermione lunged forward from her spot on the most posh and terribly ostentatious bed that Galleons could buy and swiped her hand at the robes of her husband. He narrowly dodged out of her reach and her eyes flashed as though that was quite possibly the most idiotic thing possible to have done. The lamps in the room trembled and flickered and Hermione gnashed her teeth. 

In a low, trembling voice, her lips peeled back and she growled, "Give. Me. Your.  **_Locket._ ** "

Voldemort inhaled sharply, twitching away from his wife's snarling face with a hand clutched to his chest. Swallowing thickly, he turned to the Muggle midwife that Hermione had been working with for some time who had absolutely not batted an eyelash at the magical couple once the truth had come out – apparently, she had  _ “seen much stranger shite than witches and wizards at the tail end of a pregnant woman. _ ”

"Perhaps it would be best if I left her in your care." 

The midwife spared him an agitated glance, opening her mouth to speak but was cut off by a scream the likes of which he'd never heard come out of his small witch before.

**_"ELENA GET ME MY WA—AHHHHHHHHH!"_ **

Voldemort blanched.

Elena, one of the Mediwitches bustling about the room, spoke up from where she'd moved in to quickly start blotting moisture from Hermione's forehead with a clean cloth. 

"Perhaps that would be best, my Lord," she said.

_ Childbirth. _

_ That _ was something new.

. . . . .

"Qualifications."

The tall, dark bearded man shifted uncomfortably under Voldemort's gaze. 

"Ah…proficient in dark arts." His mouth twitched and his eyes glanced up at the bouncing motion of the Dark Lord's knee and back down. "I uh, specialize in Unforgivables, particularly t-torture and pain…" He glanced up and back down another time. "And also—"

Voldemort waved off whatever else the man was about to say in a bored motion. "Yes, yes, yes,  _ wonderful, _ perfect, but how do you feel about  _ nappies _ ?"

The man straightened and blinked, confused, now openly staring at the tiny burbling child Voldemort was bouncing on his leg. "N-nappies, my Lord?"

" _ Yes _ —" The child let loose a raucous belch that earned a sweet coo from the Dark Lord. "Oh, that's my sweet little darling, Cassi, get it all out for daddy." He pursed his lips, blowing the tiny gurgling girl a kiss and booping her delicate little nose with the tip of his finger. Turning his attention back to his interviewee, Voldemort smiled a smile that showed  _ far _ too many teeth to be a good thing. "Now: nappies. How do you feel about them?"

Fidgeting, the man hesitated, looked at the baby, glanced around the room, and finally said, "Sorry, my Lord, I'm… not sure I understand?"

A long stretch of silence hung between them, everything about Voldemort entirely still and rigid except for the continuous bouncing motion of his one knee where his daughter wobbled, steadied only by his hands, and looked about blankly all while a soft  _ guh-guh-guh  _ noise was forced out of her with every bounce. The man grew more and more nervous as each second ticked by, a cold sweat breaking out on his skin until he dropped back into a frightened hunch and the Dark Lord Voldemort just  _ stared _ hard at the top of his bowed head.

In the course of a second, the tense, tight atmosphere suddenly lightened and Voldemort perked up. "Ah, I understand where there may have been confusion in my question. Nappies: cloth or disposable?"

That look of confusion on the other man's face lingered for another half a second before understanding replaced it, he straightened again, and the tight lines around his eyes eased. 

_ "Oh," _ he said, shoulders opening with his more relaxed stance, "cloth, of course."

Voldemort leaned back in his chair, openly interested by the response. " _ Really _ . And why do you say that?"

"Well, it's much better for the environment then, isn't it, my Lord?" he asked casually, seeming only to remember himself when Voldemort's eyes narrowed. Fumbling, he added, "Ah, well, of course, I mean, you already knew that, o-of course—"

"Of course."

"Better for the littluns too as I understand it. No telling what sorts of tonics and spells they use on the disposables nowadays." The tall man's face became much more animated then. "And really! Where are they bein' made now? They  _ say _ London, but where are all those ingredients coming from? Could be Bulgaria, could be the Americas, there's really no way to tell what—"

"—to tell what  _ shite  _ is really in all of that mass produced nonsense,  _ no. _ " Voldemort nodded in agreement as he covered his babe's ears before he cursed and went back to stabilizing her in her bouncing immediately after.

The two men shared a cordial laugh a moment before the room fell into that tight silence again.

Cocking his head to one side, Voldemort looked at the bearded man again. "I hadn't realized you were a father—" He paused, summoning the man's application parchment closer to have a look. "— _ Altyn _ , is it?"

"Yes, my Lord," he said a bit modestly, then more eagerly added, "girls," and then in a prouder tone, " **_two_ ** ."

"Ahh." Voldemort sighed wistfully. "Yes, they are lovely aren't they? How old?"

"Five and seven, my Lord."

At that, Voldemort hummed. "Wonderful, wonderful. Well,  _ Altyn, _ you-are- **_hired_ ** ."

Altyn brightened, practically beaming at the concept of working for the Dark Lord  _ and  _ the Minister for Magic, but before he could properly thank Voldemort, his red eyed Lord smiled a shark’s smile.

"You start tomorrow and you will be caring for little Cassiopeia here and also my little Cassandra and our handsome little Cassius…and Altyn, if you displease me, I will murder your wife and family. Understood?"

Altyn went sheet white. "Y-yes, my Lord."

 

**Author's Note:**

> Come hang out with me on the social medias! o_o
> 
>  **Twitter:** @lechegomyeggo  
>  **Tumblr:** dulce-de-leche-go


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